Great Grandad's palette

A few weeks ago while outdoor painting I gave my great grandfather's palette a whirl.  A compact little mahogany one, it's perfect for packing light.  It's been hanging on the door of my studio ever since I inherited it from my mum over 25 years ago.  I don't know if mum actually ever used it.  It's been my practice in the past to use disposable tear-off paper palettes for easy clean-up, but a painter friend gave me a tip about using steel wool with a little solvent to remove dried oil paint, and it works like a charm.

Sunny Break -oil on panel 6 x 8"

I don't mean to sound all "whoooowheee..." or anything but there was an energy in that palette!  YES.  A sort of mental connection.  The whole time I was painting I thought about my great grandad.  What inspired him? How often had he actually got to paint for pure pleasure?  Let's face it, life wasn't a breeze in rural Lincolnshire back in 1880.  A day's living would have been a lot of hard physical work.  But for some of great Grandad's life, he did work as a restorer of art...paintings of antiquity...BUT I'm guessing that's not all he did to make a living. I wish my grandmother were still alive so that I could ask her more about her dad.

I never knew him, but somehow I felt his spirit around me while I painted that day.  He would have been pleasantly enjoying the surroundings, I'm sure he never made it to Canada in his lifetime.  I think I felt what he might have felt as I worked.  That pure pleasure of manifesting my landscape observation with a few gobs of colored pigment.  No technology anywhere, just the same little palette 125 years later.